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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Baidu overtakes Google in global smart speaker market [theverge.com]

Chinese search giant Baidu is now the world's second biggest vendor of smart speakers, according to a new report from Canalys [canalys.com]. The research firm says Baidu overtook Google to capture 17.3 percent of the global market with 4.5 million shipments in the second quarter of 2019, representing staggering year-on-year growth of 3,700 percent. Amazon remains the overall leader with more than 25 percent share of the market and 6.6 million shipments.

Baidu's AI speakers run on an AI platform called DuerOS. The company initially targeted the high end of the market with the Teenage Engineering-designed Raven H speaker [theverge.com], but that product apparently sold poorly. More recently, Baidu has pushed sales of much less expensive models, with the basic Xiaodu speaker selling for as low as 89 yuan [theinformation.com] (~$12). Baidu overtook previous domestic leader Alibaba in the first quarter of this year in China, according to Canalys [globenewswire.com].

But the company has faced some trouble lately:

Baidu has lost over $60 billion in value since its peak — now earnings are expected to fall further [cnbc.com]
TikTok's Parent Pushes Into Search Business in Threat to Baidu [bloomberg.com]
Baidu is facing an unlikely challenger in China's search market — TikTok owner ByteDance [cnbc.com]
Baidu: 'China's Google' Is Not Done Yet [seekingalpha.com]

Related: Baidu Launches 'AI-powered Digital Assistant' Duer to Take On Google Now, Siri [soylentnews.org]
Amazon Dominates Voice-Controlled Speaker Market [soylentnews.org]
Alibaba Challenges Google, Amazon With New Echo-Like Device [soylentnews.org]
Baidu, "China's Google", Shows First Loss [soylentnews.org]
Google Will Give 100,000 Home Minis to People With Paralysis [soylentnews.org]

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